The history of JS Cards.

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As a young boy in the mid 1960’s, like many others I collected the Brooke Bond tea cards that came in the packets of Tea. I remember the flags, ships, trees and transport cards in particular, a fleeting interest passed, and absolutely no idea what happened to them many years later.

 

As a refrigeration engineer by trade, in my mid forties I did not even know of the existence of cigarette cards. Then in 2007, the seeds of interest were definitively sown by my then 7 year old son, at a local car boot, he casually asked what “these“ were?  “These“ turned out to be a biscuit tin of Brooke Bond cards. I told my son I used to collect them as a young boy, he duly purchased the tin of cards for £2 from the knowing Octogenarian behind the table, ditto the following week, together we sorted them out, week Three was my first introduction to cigarette cards, as we purchased a set of Players Cries of London 2nd series for a whole £5 from the same man, who we had got to know fairly well.

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Within 3 months, we purchased more from advertising and my trawl of antique shops, but my son had lost interest, where as I had the bug with a vengeance, buying up everything I could with my limited resources. I then decided to sell the duplication in order to finance my new hobby and to be fair to my wife and children.

 

Moderately successful, around 2008 I declared my hobby a business and did fairs at weekends etc, all the earnings being continually reinvested, the wife came on board, driving me to fairs at silly o’clock, sorting and doing the accounts, around 2014 I was fortunate to be allowed go part time with my then employers, this enabled me to substantially increase my efforts and investment, to the point where I could go full time and say good by to my near 40 year refrigeration career in 2015.

 

As turnover increased in 2016 I became VAT registered, nowadays I am still very fortunate to have turned my hobby into a full time and very well established business.